Review: "The Haunting of Hill House" by Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson is one of those secret-famous authors. Say her name and you're likely to get back a lot of blank stares, but say the title of her work or an adaptation of her work and watch their eyes light up. "That's who wrote it? What was her name again?"

Most schoolchildren in America are familiar with her short story, "The Lottery," about a small town that ritualistically murders an individual every year to ensure good harvest and good fortune. It's such a classic that you might know it by heart without remembering the first time you read it or saw it referenced in other TV shows and movies. "The Simpsons" referenced it in their golden years ("Dog of Death," season 3, episode 19), and even "South Park" took a stab at it, no pun intended because the townsfolk use rocks ("Britney's New Look," season 12, episode 2).

The subject of today's post, Jackson's 1959 novella "The Haunting of Hill House," has twice been adapted as a movie called "The Haunting." The first movie from 1963 is supposed to be pretty good, a classic of horror cinema, which is why I haven't watched it. I'm a pansy. I saw the 1999 remake on TV one night, but only because it's too shitty to be scary, even for me. I don't recommend it, though I do recommend this Nostalgia Critic video review that compares the two versions.

As I mentioned, I'm a pansy when it comes to horror. I actually read "The Haunting of Hill House" in the day time because I was too afraid to read it at night. Was my fear justified? Yes, but maybe not in the way Jackson intended. Horror and ghost stories depend a great deal on atmosphere, and Jackson certainly knows how to create that brooding sense of danger and fear. But for me, the book was a bit defeated by her own premise, which is that the characters are gathering in the big scary haunted house specifically to study and observe the phenom of a haunting. Some of my fear immediately goes out the window when the characters know that they're being haunted and talk openly about their impressions and observations of the ghosts' activity.

I think Jackson was trying to show how the power of ghosts and fear can hold up even under scientific scrutiny, and while it's an original premise that raises a lot of interesting questions about the concepts and conceits of the ghost story genre, it doesn't necessarily make this ghost story any scarier. The scariest parts of this book are the bits that veer away from the scientific and dive right in to the cliche: the whispers of the townsfolk and caretakers, the knockings and voices in the night, the disorienting dimensions of the house itself.

Where "The Haunting of Hill House" really shines is the character development. Jackson is great at creating dialog that feels both natural and revealing, if a bit archaic to modern readers, given the time it was written. She's a master of the "show-don't-tell" technique (which is why teachers love her work so much), and she gives these stock characters depth and dimension, making them fully realized individuals instead of just archetypes. Two characters that bumble in toward the end of the book--the pushy psychic and the Teddy Roosevelt-esque headmaster--are referred to in the narration only by their names, but their dialog is so wonderfully descriptive and personalized that I knew as much about them after three pages than I knew about the other four characters after spending an entire book with them. All writers aspire to that level of skill, but few will ever reach the heights that Jackson did.

Maybe that's why more ordinary readers don't know Jackson by name. She's a great example of a writer's writer, known to those who write and those who study and teach writing, to the point that you might read something of hers and think it feels every familiar, because so many bigger, more famous authors are inspired by her *coughStephenKing*. I consider her one of the Great American Writers and highly encourage you to check out her oeuvre, which is widely available at your local library and online for free in my cases.

Final Grade: B+. It gets a few points deducted because it scared me. Recommended for those who like horror or ghost stories, meta works that skew the genre, and writers who could learn a thing or two from a hidden gem of American literature.

Review: "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier

Now we're cooking with gas.

"Rebecca" was published in 1938 to great critical and popular acclaim and it's considered a modern classic according to the tattered cover of the copy I found on someone's door stoop here in Brooklyn. That's right, this is a stoop find, and wow is it a good one! I didn't realize that it was written so recently. I only know it from clips of the Alfred Hitchcock movie (1940), and that footage led me to believe that "Rebecca" was a Gothic romance from the time of "Wuthering Heights."

The book is definitely a Gothic romance in plot and tone, but it's set in England in the 1930s, so while much of the setting is relatively modern--car travel and telephones are heavily featured--the characters themselves and their attitudes toward each other are holdovers from the Victorian era. There's a lot of interesting juxtaposition between the modern and the ancient in "Rebecca," embodied most strongly in the two mistresses of Manderley.

Rebecca de Winter was the first wife of Maxim de Winter, master of the famous estate and mansion Manderley. I think Maxim must be titled in some way because of the paternalistic way he talks about the people of the nearby town and countryside, and the way those peripheral characters talk about him, but you never learn what his exact title is. Rebecca herself probably has a title, too, because much is made of her good breeding and upbringing. Suffice to say that both Maxim and Rebecca are of the same landed gentry class.

The second Mrs. de Winter (and the narrator), whose first name we never learn, isn't landed gentry. At the beginning of the book, she's actually more of a maid, running errands for an obnoxious American in Monte Carlo. She meets and falls in love with Maxim there. Even though she's only known him for two weeks, and she's twenty years younger than him, AND they're at opposite ends of the social spectrum, she says yes to his marriage proposal and they bum around Italy for a while. Like ya do.

At this point, Rebecca has been dead for almost a year from a well-publicized boating accident, and the narrator is more than a little nervous about stepping into her role as mistress of the fabulous Manderley. Mrs. de Winter doesn't know how to command a staff of servants and she has no experience in socializing with people in the upper class, so she's already at a disadvantage. To make matters worse, Rebecca was apparently a joy and a pleasure to all who came across her, and everywhere she turns, the shy and diffident Mrs. de Winter finds herself compared to the glamorous Rebecca and coming up short. There are even some individuals lurking in the sidelines who miss Rebecca so terribly that they're actively plotting against Mrs. de Winter and her fledgling marriage to Maxim.

"Rebecca" isn't a ghost story in the traditional sense because there are no specters or ghouls, no doors blowing shut mysteriously or cold drafts from unexplained sources. Rebecca herself is most assuredly dead throughout the entire book. But she was such a mighty presence in life that Mrs. de Winter and Maxim feel haunted by her, by the memories that their servants and friends have of her, and by the house and grounds she decorated and designed. In a way, "Rebecca" is a more effective ghost story than one with an actual ghost in it because it is so realistic. It illustrates on how people live on after they die, in their physical possessions and in  hearts and minds of their social circle, and how difficult it is to bury the past when evidence of it is all around you.

But "Rebecca" is also a bit of a murder mystery, right down to the scene at the end where the detective gathers the players together in the library to go over the evidence and decide whodunit. But du Maurier turns this convention on its head as well, because we already know whodunit and why, and all of the characters do, too. It's a suspenseful scene where everyone is just waiting to see if the evidence will add up to the horrid truth or reinforce the comfortable lie.

"Rebecca" is a murder mystery without any mystery, and a ghost story without any ghost. It's a meditation on the encroachment of the modern world into the traditional one, and also questions just how wonderful "tradition" actually is. Does good breeding and a sparkling wit mean that one is a good person? Can someone still be good if they perform terrible deeds? What is the price of good appearances and a stiff upper lip?

"Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier: A.

Recommended for anyone who likes a good ghost story, a Gothic romance, or the movie "Gosford Park." The movie isn't considered one of Hitchcock's best, though, so I'd avoid it unless you're really into Hitchcock.